Women’s March leader Linda Sarsour had choice words for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as House Democrats struggled this week to respond to Rep. Ilhan Omar accusing Jewish lawmakers of displaying "allegiance to a foreign country."

Sarsour, who served as co-chair of the Women's March in 2017 and 2019, accused Pelosi of "doing the dirty work of powerful white men" by condemning Omar’s words, writes theSan Francisco Chronicle. .

"Nancy is a typical white feminist upholding the patriarchy doing the dirty work of powerful white men," she wrote in a Facebook post. "God forbid the men are upset - no worries, Nancy to the rescue to stroke their egos."

Friday night, Rep. Omar stole the narrative yet again, igniting a new controversy by appearing to bash former president Barack Obama as some sort of “war-mongering, neoliberal shill”, according toVanity Fair.

Omar says the “hope and change” offered by Barack Obama was a mirage. Recalling the “caging of kids” at the U.S.-Mexico border and the “droning of countries around the world” on Obama’s watch, she argues that the Democratic president operated within the same fundamentally broken framework as his Republican successor.

“We can’t be only upset with Trump. … His policies are bad, but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more polished than he was,” Omar says. “And that’s not what we should be looking for anymore. We don’t want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished. We want to recognize the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile.”

Reading the actual Politico article in which Rep. Omar basically calls Obama just another murderer with a pretty face, I read the words of Ali Aden, a 39-year-old engineer who came to the U.S. two decades ago. I am trying to see if he is related to Halima Ali Aden -- the hijab-wearing model I write about all the time -- who returned to Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya this summer for a very inspiring TED Talk.

These are his words about Omar's Minnesota constitutents, expressing hope that Omar will "do better". With Linda Sarsour at her side, I seriously doubt it:

" All of this proved agonizing for Omar’s constituents, particularly those in the Somali community. Her arrival in Congress was meant to bring them legitimacy and representation. Instead, almost immediately, it invited controversy and humiliation. “I was shocked. I don’t like her on Twitter,” Aden tells me. “She’s very smart, and I didn’t think she would talk that way. It was an embarrassment for me as a Somali-American, because we do not like extreme left or extreme right. But she will do better. This is new to her—she will learn how to handle it.”

It seems that Republican male legislators in New Hampshire are really taking the gloves off -- wearing pearls to mock moms involved in trying to act against gun violence. The trope of pearl-clutching, easily-offended liberals has a tradition in American politics.

"Male New Hampshire lawmakers on the hearing committee wearing pearls to mock Moms Demand Action volunteers and gun safety advocates," wrote Shannon Watts, founder of the gun control group Moms Demand Action, to describe the picture above.

Her post condemning the men quickly spread, accruing more than 6,000 shares and almost 5,000 comments, writes the BBC.

Debra Altschiller, a Democratic representative who sponsored the bill, tweeted: "Disappointed in the pearl clutching by @NHGOP [New Hampshire Republicans]. There are families who have lost loved ones here and this mocking prop shows how little they empathise with suicide."

Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense founder Shannon Watts joins other gun-safety advocates for a news conference to introduce legislation to expand background checks for firearm sales in the Rayburn Room of the U.S. Capitol Jan. 8, 2019, in Washington. via CBS News

Republicans have responded that they were standing in solidarity with a pro-gun women’s group "The use of pearls date back to 2016 and the legislators and Second Amendment supporters were in no way wearing them in a mocking fashion to those who came to testify yesterday.

"They are a symbol of solidarity with the Women's Defense League and the Second Amendment community in the Granite State." CBS Newsreports that Kimberly Morin, the leader of the Women's Defense League, told media that its members first wore pearls 2016, when it showed support for a bill allowing gun owners to carry concealed weapons without a permit.

Morin said the pearls are worn "in defense of women's rights”, adding "We are moms just like they are only on different sides."

The New Hampshire hearing focused on a so-called "red flag" bill that empowers family members or law enforcement officers to go to gain court approval to temporarily take guns away from people who may pose an immediate threat to other people and themselves. Fourteen states have already passed such laws, according to The Associated Press.

Margaret Tilton of Exeter, whose son George died by suicide in 2017 at the age of 23, testified in front of the pearl-wearing men, according to the AP. Tilton told the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee that police were able to convince him to hand over a gun in 2016, but he was able to buy another one.

In this case a picture is worth a thousand words, and the perception of men wearing pearls as mocking women has far greater probable impact, given the constant mocking of progressive female values by Republicans.

Hey, when you're drowning in your own testosterone and Biblical interpretation that women must submit to you, I guess this is how Repubs treat women trying to save lives in the most violent developed nation on Earth. Funny how God didn't rain guns in all those other countries, just the USA. We're so special.

In 2012, as the Republican War on Women was roaring into high gear, Slate wrote: ‘A Plague of Pearl Clutching’. AOC notes that the far left has also used the expression of pearl-clutchers to describe Hillary Clinton supporters as making a big deal of events like this one but not being willing to take to the streets to truly fight Republicans.

The Kickstartercampaign read: When her daughter died from a preventable medical condition, businesswoman Amy Vilela of Las Vegas didn't know what to do with her anger about America's broken health care system. Bronx-born Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had to work double shifts in a restaurant to save her family’s home from foreclosure after losing her father. Cori Bush, a Saint Louis nurse, was drawn into the streets when the shooting of Michael Brown brought protests and tanks into her neighborhood. Paula Jean Swearengin buried family and neighbors to illnesses caused by West Virginia’s coal industry — and worries her children will be next. All four women understood that their lives were affected by politics, but none had considered running for office themselves. Until now.

424 backers pledged $28,111 to help bring the documentary ‘Knock Down The House: A Documentary’ to life. Created by Rachel Lears and Robin Blotnick, ‘Knock Down The House’ won the Sundance’s Festival Favorite Award, a fact that most certainly impacted the recent sale of all distribution rights to the film to Netflix for $10 million. Deadline reports that NEON, Focus, Hulu and Amazon were also vying for the feature

(Left to right) Paula Jean Swearengin, Amy Vilella, film director Rachel Lears, and Cori Bush at the Sundance premiere of Knock Down the House (photo courtesy Sundance Institute). Missing is Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, who scored one of the greatest upsets in political history in her defeat of Joe Crowley..

Hyperallergicprofiles the film, writing that Lears has a good eye and sharp instincts in her decision to shadow Ocasio Cortez’s campaign even before she filed her nomination.

On one hand, through Ocasio Cortez’s campaign, Lears’ pragmatic lens reveals the very foundation on which America was built: a land that epitomized countless possibilities and equal opportunities for just about anyone. And on the other, she mines Ocasio Cortez’s solitary – and toilsome – win to anchor the frustrations of the “process” that fails the other three candidates.

The film has many bittersweet moments that deal with rejections, and it refuses to use AOC’s win to suggest that the door is wide open for women candidates. On a call, Ocasio Cortez consoles Villela after her loss with a “It’s just the reality that for one of us to make it, a thousand of us have to try.” It’s the same wisdom she passes on to her niece while handing out flyers, “For every 10 rejections, you get one acceptance, and that’s how you win everything” and by extension, the awareness that the film wishes to pass down to its audience.

The system is designed to hold outsiders at bay, concludes Hyperallergic. Being jazzed by AOC’s win is fantabulous. But without huge, systemic changes in the American system, it’s tough to see how real change happens. Still, #SHE PERSISTED!

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